Can you imagine a Thanksgiving dinner without pumpkin pie? It is widely thought by historical experts that pumpkin pie wasn’t actually served at the first Thanksgiving. Pumpkin was served, however, and it was most likely a pumpkin baked with some kind of sweetener; probably a sort of sweet pudding.

Store bought pumpkin pies are rarely worth eating; they are usually several days old (they sit on shelves at room temperature for who knows how long), and are often made with substandard ingredients. Fortunately, homemade Pumpkin pie is not difficult to make. The following Exceptionally Delicious Pumpkin Pie is made with canned pumpkin and can be mixed in just a few short minutes. The crust can be made from scratch (Basic Pie Crust) or for those in a hurry, refrigerated pie crusts can be used. This pie can even be prepared the night before.

To insure a flaky crust when baking the pie in a regular oven, it should be baked on the bottom rack of the oven; if a convection oven is available, the crust will bake evenly no matter which rack it’s baked on.

This luscious and rich pie has a thin layer of apricot preserves between the filling and the crust, which adds a great flavor. For plain pumpkin pie, it can be omitted. It goes without saying that a luscious pie should be topped with real whipped cream; frozen whipped topping will ruin the pie.